Have you ever wondered what a megawatt of solar looks like? This month’s feature photo, left, comes to us from Limoneira’s new one-megawatt “solar orchard” in Santa Paula, CA. The 6,400 panel system is expected to produce enough clean energy to offset the annual CO2 impact of 200 single-family homes. Read on for important updates from the California Solar Initiative, and a chance to submit photos of your CSI-funded solar system.

The California Public Utilities Commission issued Decision (D.)08-10-036 establishing solar rebates for qualifying affordable housing developments, as defined by state law, under a new $108 million solar incentive program for Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH), part of the California Solar Initiative.

MASH incentive levels will depend on whether the solar installation provides power to common areas of the affordable housing complex or directly to tenant units, with incentive levels of $3.30 per Watt for systems offsetting common area load, and $4 per Watt for systems offsetting tenant load.

The program will be administered by the existing CSI Program Administrators: Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison and the California Center for Sustainable Energy.

The California Energy Commission is considering adopting Guidelines for California's Solar Electric Incentive Programs (Senate Bill 1), Second Edition, which would establish eligibility criteria, conditions for incentives, and equipment rating standards for all ratepayer-funded solar electric programs in California. The California Energy Commission will take this up as part of its Dec. 3, 2008, business meeting.

More than 350 people attended the Commercial Solar Tour held last month in San Diego. This year's Tour was held in conjunction with Solar Power International 2008.

Organized for the fourth year running by CCSE, the tour consisted of four sites located throughout San Diego: (1) the solar "trees" planted on the Gilman Parking Structure at UC San Diego; (2) the Alvarado Water Treatment Facility’s 1 megawatt (MW) system built on top of four water reservoirs; (3) the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Training Facility; and, (4) the New Children’s Museum, one of the greenest buildings in San Diego.

Representatives from each site described the installations while attendees explored and photographed the systems.

More SCE customers are learning about solar energy and the CSI program each month with the recent introduction of SCE’s Homeowner Solar Information Sessions.

About 300 homeowners have already attended one of the five sessions held throughout the utility’s service territory, with two more set before the end of the year.

These 90-minute, non-technical, easy-to-understand homeowner information sessions are held from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. so customers can attend after work.

"We’re thrilled that despite these difficult economic times, so many people want to learn about how to ‘go solar,’” said SCE’s Javier Burgos. “Based on the high level of interest and satisfaction of attendees to date, in 2009 we plan to reach even further into our 50,000-square-mile service territory with the very timely messages of energy efficiency and renewable solar energy.”

The two remaining 2008 sessions are scheduled for Santa Monica on Nov. 20 and Tulare on Dec. 1, and as many as 40 more are planned for 2009. The first five sessions were held in Irvine, Irwindale (2), Cathedral City and Santa Barbara.

Something new is growing amid the citrus and avocados in Santa Paula, Calif. It’s electricity, courtesy of solar panels designed to produce enough power annually for almost 200 average American homes.

Santa Paula-based Limoneira, one of the state’s largest agribusinesses, recently dedicated its 5.5-acre “solar orchard.” With 6,400 photovoltaic (PV) panels, the 1 megawatt system is expected to generate 1,950 megawatt-hours annually.

“By farming the sun, we’re going to vastly reduce our energy costs,” said Limoneira President and CEO Harold Edwards. More importantly, though, Edwards explained, “We found yet another way to demonstrate that there’s no conflict between sound business decisions and being an environmentally conscious, sustainable enterprise.”

The solar orchard took four months to construct and meets strict Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. Limoneira expects the project will offset the annual CO2 impact of 200 single-family homes.
Founded in 1893 and long a key player in California’s storied agriculture industry, Limoneira today grows lemons, avocados, oranges, fruits and nuts on 7,000 acres.

The
California Solar Initiative Trigger Tracker provides an indicator of
when the CSI incentive levels are expected to drop by showing the
reservation and review status of all incentive classes. This snapshot
compares the megawatts remaining in each step with the megawatts under
review, so that users can estimate how close the incentives are to
declining. When there are more megawatts under review than remaining in
the step, then it may be probable that any new applications will be at
the next (i.e. LOWER) incentive step level.

PG&E recently celebrated completion of its 10,000th CSI reservation, a significant milestone considering it took place in just the second year of a 10-year program.

While this speaks volumes about the level of solar interest in the state and momentum generated via the CSI program, PG&E is also celebrating recent process improvements which have resulted in faster reservation processing times.

Kristi Patterson, CSI supervisor at PG&E, stated that the team is “continually working to identify areas upon which to improve that positively impact our customers’ experience with the CSI program; we're confident that the high number of reservations we're seeing in PG&E's service territory reflect our ongoing efforts to streamline operations.”

While 10,000 applications have been submitted and funds reserved, more than 6,000 of these have resulted in completed solar installations.

Thanks to ongoing interest in PG&E's CSI Workshops and the regular customer requests to see expanded subject matter, PG&E's CSI team has launched a “new and improved” workshop intended for installers, service providers and anyone interested in “going solar.”

The recently debuted pilot met with positive attendee feedback, especially the new level of detail and integration of energy efficiency and ClimateSmart, a PG&E program that allows a customer to easily offset the carbon emissions associated with their energy use.

Other newly integrated content includes information on other solar electric technologies and CSI's Low Income and New Solar Homes Partnership programs.
In addition to revamping the curriculum, PG&E is bringing the CSI Workshop to all areas of its service territory—from San Francisco to San Jose and from Oakland to Bakersfield.

>> click here for
information on this particular workshop and all of PG&E's solar classes.

Four New Solar Homes Partnership communities that exhibited the highest levels of energy efficiency in the Sacramento area were featured in the Weekend Walk Thru promotion throughout October.
The communities—Caspian Run by Standard Pacific, Woodbury Glen by Standard Pacific, Wisteria by Christopherson Homes and Blackstone by Lennar —were each featured for one week in radio and Internet mentions that included on-air consumer reviews.

Calling all installers! This is a great opportunity to showcase your CSI-funded residential solar projects. The California Solar Initiative Program seeks photos of CSI-funded solar systems for use in future newsletters or other CSI-related publicity. Photos can include completed residential solar PV systems, shots of installations in progress, or solar water heating installations.

The CSI program is funded by California investor-owned utility customers and administered by Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and the California Center for Sustainable Energy under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission. Your privacy is important to us. The California Solar Initiative Program Administrators will not disclose your personal information to any third party.This email was sent to: reardon.amy@gmail.com. You are receiving this newsletter pursuant to D.07.05.047 because you are a participant in the California Solar Initiative (CSI).